What Christians Ought to Believe - A Review

Are you looking for a solid, theological book that you can read devotionally? If you’re not, you should be. If you are, then pick up Michael Bird’s latest book, What Christians Ought to Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine through the Apostles’s Creed.

 Everything Bird writes is entertaining. His punchy prose springs from the page, even when he’s writing deep theology. He intentionally uses attention grabbing language and examples to make important points memorable. The purposefulness of Bird’s exuberant writing is what keeps his books from being over the top. He uses snappy rhetoric only to punctuate the most important points, not merely to entertain.

 Summary

 What Christians Ought to Believe is divided into fourteen chapters, so a chapter by chapter summary would be tedious and unproductive. However, an overview is in order.

 Bird begins with a basic defense of creeds and their relation to a biblical faith in four chapters. This is a necessary discussion for Free Church Christians (such as myself) who have historically questioned the place of creeds. After giving sound reasons to study the creeds—though certainly not slavishly—Bird shifts to a discussion of the nature of faith. This section outlines what biblical faith is in contrast to the generic call to believe that culture issues. Faith is substantive. Faith requires a solid object. Faith is a gift from God. Faith is enhanced when it is placed in the God who is carefully described in the Apostles’ Creed.

 Having laid the groundwork for the remainder of the study, each of the remaining ten chapters picks up a phrase from the Apostles’ Creed and explains why proper belief in that element of traditional Christian doctrine is necessary for a healthy orthodoxy. It's a simple structure, but effective.

 Application

 Each of the chapters has from twelve to sixteen pages. I read a chapter a day in the morning as part of my daily devotions for a couple of weeks. The rich theology, solid history, and entertaining prose make this an excellent way to begin the day. There are enough clear divisions within the chapters so that slower readers could easily make this a longer study without losing the flow.

 This is the sort of volume that I would love to see used as college level book study. I am giving it strong consideration for use in our homeschool curriculum, when my oldest gets to high school. It would also be a worthwhile resource for the discipleship of new adult believers. The reading level is moderate, so for the right audience, this would be an excellent tool.

 I could also see this being used as an auxiliary volume in a systematic theology course. Bird references sections of his Evangelical Theology after each chapter, but What Christians Ought to Believe could be used apart from his systematics.

 Whether the book is included in a course, used as a small group tool, or simply for personal edification, this is a volume that warrants attention.

 Conclusion

The one potential weakness of this volume is that there are a few cases where some readers may find Bird's illustrations to be excessively shocking. This will depend on the audience. One example is in Bird's account of first hearing the gospel, he relates a humorous story that includes monkeys giving themselves testicular exams. Many readers will find it funny and move on, and the story serves to wake the reader up to get the gospel in the same paragraph. However, some readers may find a few such flourishes to be a little too much locker room talk for a serious theology text.

What Christians Ought to Believe is a great addition to a theological library. It is well-written, theologically sound, and expresses the Christian faith positively. Instead of making a case against heresy, Michael Bird lays out his case for orthodoxy. If we continue to get books of this tenor and quality, there will be a lot to cheer about in the near future.

What Christians Ought to Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine Through the Apostles' Creed

$18.68

By Michael F. Bird

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Every Good Thing - A Review

Some Christians seem to doubt the goodness of the world around. They take the opposition of “the world, the flesh, and the devil” to mean that somehow the material world around is sinful and must be repudiated.

This position has its roots in an exaggerated application of Jesus’ commands to seek the kingdom first and store up treasures in heaven. These commands are intended to call Christians away from the this-worldly focus that tends to consume our minds by virtue of proximity.

The anti-world attitude has been popularized in Christian hymns like, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.”

We have reason to hope in the coming restoration of all things. This is an eschatological hope. However, that hope should inspire action in this world, not cause Christians to withdraw into a bunker mindset.

The balancing act between hoping in heaven and working in this world can be difficult, but it is absolutely necessary.

The recent book from David W. Jones, Every Good Thing, is a valuable resource for Christians seeking to balance heavenly mindedness with this-worldy goodness.

Every Good Thing is an intentionally introductory volume, which has as its main goal the reunification of the Christian life. We are called to be seven-day Christians, who apply biblical ethics to each decision, and every situation. We are driven, because of the demands of a biblical worldview, to see each area of our life as subordinate to the lordship of Jesus-Christ. Jones’ recent book helps with that reunification.

Summary

The book is brief, with a little over 100 pages of text, but in a small format. It is designed to be easily read, digested by a wide audience, with clear lines of application. The format is ideal for a short term book study in a small group or use as a text in a discipleship context.

The first of six chapters provides a foundation for the remainder of the volume, defining terms and outlining how Jesus’ life and ministry fits into the discussion of goodness and the material world. Chapter two deals with work and vocation. The topic is en vogue in conservative Christian circles, but mainly because it has been neglected for a number of years. This chapter charts a course for reuniting the Christian life through a better understanding of calling.

The third chapter seeks to balance out the idea of work and vocation with a discussion of rest and Sabbath. One of the possible side-effects of viewing work as an opportunity to serve God is that it will cause a restless, relentless push for productivity. That isn’t the point, as Jones stresses in the third chapter. Rather, rest and Sabbath are gifts from God to balance the goodness of human productivity with the joy of God’s provision.

Chapter four outlines a biblical theology of wealth and poverty. Here, Jones pushes back against attitudes that see spirituality as necessarily connected to financial prosperity. He fights the errors of the so-called Prosperity Gospel as well as the competing errors like asceticism. Christians need to value the world properly, which generally means walking a narrow road between extreme errors.

In the fifth chapter, Jones takes on the idea of valuing creation and stewardship. Environmental ethics has generally gotten a bad rap among conservative Christians. Part of this is that much of the environmental movement has gone head over heels for anti-human attitudes that run contrary to Scripture. However, there is a strong place in Christian theology for rightly caring for the creation God has entrusted to humans. Jones makes a good case for that in this chapter. He then closed in Chapter Six with some summary comments, pointing toward areas for further study.

Analysis and Critique

This book’s greatest limitations are in its format. The accomplished scholar will pick up this brief volume and wonder what it adds to the scholarly discussion. The answer to that is simply, nothing. No chapter is comprehensive. There are no footnotes. Every rabbit trail is not chased. A particular set of assumptions about Scripture and theological method are made and not defended. That is the nature of this book as an introductory volume.

Conversely, the greatest strengths of this book are in its format. The layperson or young theological student can pick this book up and gain a quick understanding of a conservative perspective on the relationship between Christianity and the surrounding world. It is grounded in a distinctly orthodox worldview, and intended to bring people into the conversation that might otherwise not be exposed to these important ideas. 

This book fills a desperate need for the Church. It helps form the connection between a Christian worldview and the world around. Jones has written winsomely and carefully. This is a book that would serve well in a number of settings in the local church, and would be a particularly useful tool in discipleship activities with young Christians.

Every Good Thing: An Introduction to the Material World and the Common Good for Christians

$12.95

By David W. Jones

Buy on Amazon

Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the author with no expectation of a positive review.

When We Forget Salvation

It's easy sometimes to forget the joy of salvation. When life piles on and we feel tired, lonely, and discouraged it can lead us to lose sight of the hope in our hearts that is a gift from God. Sometimes it takes hearing someone's story of God's radical transformation to reawaken the flame of faith in our hearts.

The embedded video is a the story of one woman who came to faith in Christ. Listen to the account of someone who made bad choices, was victimized, and eventually saved by the power of Christ. Hear the tale of someone who responded to a message she desperately needed to hear with faith. Trust me, it's worth a few minutes of your time.

The Joy of Salvation

King David wrote Psalm 51 in a time of spiritual darkness after he had committed adultery and caused the death one of his faithful servants. In that song of repentance, David writes,

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Ps. 51:10-12)

The joy of salvation. It's so easy to lose when the world seems to be dark, our sin is heavy, or hope dims. But the joy of salvation should overwhelm us. It should new every morning. We need to remember that redemption is possible, and that through the blood of Christ it has been effected for those who believe. This is a powerful truth. It should animate us and fill us with an overwhelming joy. 

Used by CC License. Breaking Dawn by John Mcsporran. http://ow.ly/yIAZ3005yzt

Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

One of the biggest problems facing Christians in the United States is a decreasing tolerance for religious viewpoints. More precisely, there is a decreasing tolerance for people actually living out the religious viewpoints that they claim to believe.

Image used by CC license. "It depends on the cage that you're in" by Guercio. http://ow.ly/1ddp300xhpi

Part of the growing pressure on religion is the fallacious assumption that religious thinking is somehow in a different category than non-religious thinking. This assumption is based on a naturalistic worldview that assumes that anything religious is inherently fictitious and therefore arbitrary.

The denigration of religious freedom because of a dismissal of religion as a category fails to recognize the significance of freedom of conscience. It threatens the ability to live in a pluralistic society because it values one totalizing worldview over all others. Opponents of religious freedom think that infringing on the conscience of believers will make the world a better place, but they fail to recognize that religious freedom is simply a subset of freedom of conscience.

The Unfounded Assumption

Making the unfounded assumption that religious thought is somehow inferior to supposedly non-religious thought allows people to argue there is no valid basis for declining to purchase potentially abortion inducing drugs or distribute them to others. When someone makes the assumption that religious thought is purely fiction, then there is no basis for not preferring the supposedly non-religious thought that is dominant in society.

By this way of thinking, religion is just make believe. Therefore, if someone bases a moral determination about a medicine which terminates a pregnancy on that religious foundation, there is no reason to honor that belief. After all, morality based on the make believe doesn’t really count, does it?

But this sort of argumentation—more often assumed than stated—begs the question.

In other words, instead of considering whether someone may have a legitimate basis for choosing not to purchase drugs that may end the life of a child, it merely states that any grounds that do not support unrestricted abortion are illegitimate because they have a religious foundation.

There are several problems with this sort of argumentation.

What’s Wrong With Discarding Religious Reasoning

First, it is incorrect to assume that only religious arguments can oppose abortion. For example, using a basic Kantian categorical imperative, an argument can be made that abortion is wrong because if everyone killed their children, then the human species would die out. Unless that is a desired end, then there is a case to be made in opposition to abortion on non-religious grounds.

There are other cases than abortion inducing drugs in which arguments made on religious grounds could be made on non-religious grounds. The fact that many irreligious people have accepted the dominant worldview that truth is merely a social construct limits the number of people making reasoned arguments contra the current societal consensus. However, unless one assumes that the dominant social construct is always correct, there is little reason to reject all other thinking (religious or otherwise) based on the popularity of post-foundational epistemological assumptions.

Second, simply because an argument has a religious foundation does not necessarily mean that is invalid. In order to rationally hold that belief, one would have to first prove that the religion itself is invalid. While some are convinced that all religion is false, the vast majority of humans in the history of the world (including most currently living) do not agree.

However, the invalidity of religion is exactly what so many contemporary moral arguments in the public square simply assume. This allows people to reject arguments they find inconvenient based on the genetic fallacy, without considering the merits of the opposing position or whether there may be legitimate grounds for dispute. In other words, religion is false, therefore any arguments based on religious principles must also be false, therefore do what popular opinion in society demands.

This is Too Important

If these were merely internet chatroom arguments about the existence of God or the eternal nature of the human soul, then the fallacious argumentation wouldn’t be as dangerous. But the problem is much more significant.

The coercive power of the United States government has grown to the point that it is impacting life or death decisions. The current administration’s regulations that require the purchase of drugs that may cause the termination of pregnancy make a huge moral statement and place a grave moral burden on many believers.

This issue is not one of trivial concern, since it is literally a life or death issue. Those that hold that terminating a pregnancy is a moral evil have reasons for objecting on the deepest level to purchasing or distributing the means by which a life is unjustly ended.

But arguments that hold that abortion is wrong are most often framed in religious terms. In the contemporary social milieu, the assumption is often made that religion is fiction, therefore religious arguments are unimportant. Therefore, any accommodation for faithful religious practice that excludes the purchase and distribution of abortion inducing drugs is invalid.

This sort of argumentation is narrowly circular and fails by being insufficiently self-reflective.

What if every religion isn’t false? What if every belief system isn’t merely a social construct? What if the question of life and death is so important that there needs to be room for dissent, especially in favor of not contributing to needless deaths? What if the social construct that assumes that religion cannot represent truth is incorrect? What if religious and supposedly non-religious thought are in the same category?

These questions are typically not asked, nor permitted to be asked in public debate. Supposedly non-religious thought has gained the ascendency in popular discussions and religious liberty has been pushed into the corner. And yet, religious liberty is nothing more than freedom of conscience.

Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

Freedom of conscience requires that we do not coerce behaviors when there is a reasonable basis for objection. This is what allows someone who is a non-religious, consistent pacifist to be excused from military service. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with the person’s thought, but freedom of conscience requires us to leave room for those who have reasonable objections to live consistently with their convictions. There are cases to be made for exceptional circumstances, where someone might need to be coerced, but those are exceptions to a general practice.

Freedom of religion is simply freedom of conscience built on a reasonable basis that is not purely naturalistic. Just as those who believe that eating meat is murder should not be forced to purchase meat for the office barbecue, those who believe terminating a pregnancy is murder should not be forced to buy abortion inducing drugs for their employees. Similarly, those who believe that some religious services denigrate their religion should be permitted to decline participation in those services.

Religion is not another category of thought from non-religious thinking. At least, it is not for those who actually believe what their religion teaches.

This raises an important concern. Couldn’t someone falsely claim their conscience did not allow something simply because of personal dislike or bias? Yes. However, just as we must allow for some abuse of the welfare system to occur so that a necessary safety net is available for those that actually need it, we need to allow for some abuse of freedom of conscience due to irrational and unjust biases.

This is part of the tolerance needed to live in a pluralistic society. There needs to be room for people to disagree with us, even if we don’t like the basis of their disagreement. This is especially true when it comes to issues of prime significance, like desacralizing religious ceremonies and issues of life and death. If people are not free to disagree in those significant issues, then there really is no room for freedom of conscience.

We need to learn to disagree with respect, but there needs to be room for open disagreement if we are to have any legitimate freedom at all.